Raw vs Dry Food

Is there really much of a difference between raw and dry dog food? To find out I bought a popular brand of dry dog food. Let's take a look at what's in it.

DRY DOG FOOD

The packaging states that this product is 100% Complete & Balanced Nutrition, and that it's made in Australia with Australian meat. If you look on the back it says its protein rich, calcium enriched and provides immune support.

The rest of the ingredients are chemicals which make up the synthetic nutrition component of the food. As you can see from these ingredients, without synthetic nutrition this food is pretty much garbage!

If you are wondering what a by-product is, that’s the bit that is left over after food is processed. So for example, a meat by-product is what is left of an animal after the meat is removed. It's extremely cheap but not exactly nutritious.

RAW DOG FOOD

Lets compare that to a high quality raw dog food like Whoa Nelly! Dog Food.

Looking at the pack, this food is gut friendly, grain free and it gives your dog healthy firm poos. It’s made with organic and locally sourced produce and the packaging is 100% biodegradable.

Here are the ingredients:

Kangaroo

Pastured Chicken

Organic Seasonal Fruit & Vegetables

Kangaroo Organs

Mackerel

The rest of the ingredients are functional additives like organic turmeric, ginger, coconut oil and apple cider vinegar. You can read the full ingredient list here.

HOW DO THEY COMPARE?

As you can see, these dog foods are completely different.

Lets not focus on the heat and extrusion processes used to manufacture dry dog pellets though, just the ingredients.

The dry food is almost entirely made up of by-products, which are not actually foods. They are an extremely cheap and a poor source of nutrition. And worse, they can't even say what sort of animal is comes from! No wonder dogs get food allergies.

The raw dog food however, is full of high quality ingredients. A good quality dog food like Whoa Nelly! is formulated to meet the NRC dog food guidelines, so it contains all the nutrition a dog needs. And the nutrition comes from the food, rather than a chemical additive.

COMPLETE & BALANCED

As any vet will tell you, Complete and Balanced Nutrition is extremely important. But simply throwing synthetic vitamins in dog food does not make it nutritious. Otherwise we’d all be eating weet-bix and multivitamins! It’s certainly not what I would choose to eat, and it’s not what your dog would choose to eat either.

So thats just one good reason why feeding a raw diet is better than dry kibble. And if you are feeding raw, please make sure its balanced so you don’t have health problems down the track.

WE LOVE DOGS!

Disclaimer: The entire contents of this website is based upon the opinions of Whoa Nelly! based on our research and experience. It is not intended to replace a one-on-one relationship with a Vet and not intended as medical advice. This website is a sharing of knowledge and information from our research and experience. We strongly encourage you to make your own health care decisions based upon your own research. Please consult your vet before using advice based on this content, especially if your dog is pregnant, nursing, taking medication or has a medical condition.